


Petrichor

by Twyd



Series: Arashi Series [3]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Family, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Injury, M/M, Major Character Injury, Relationship(s), Sibling Love, Slash, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 06:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11685951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: Petrichor: a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.





	Petrichor

The night after Izaya lets him back in, he rolls over in bed and tells Shizuo he’s going to Russia. The bulging suitcase he drags out of the closet reveals this has been on the cards for some time.

Shizuo doesn’t say anything. He feels he hasn't had Izaya back long enough to let him go, but Izaya has clearly made up his mind.

“You’re not just trying to get rid of me then,” Shizuo jokes weakly, as Izaya takes out his passport, and the informant doesn’t smile.

“No.”

He watches him pack.

“Were you going to tell me?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t look at him as he says it.

“When?”

“...At the airport,” he admits. His eyes are circled like he hasn’t slept. “Look, maybe it’ll be a good thing.”

Shizuo doesn't acknowledge this.

“How long are you going for?”

“I don’t know yet. No more than a month.”

A month.

“Will you call?”

“When I can. My phone is confiscated sometimes. For meetings and things.” He checks his phone as he says this. “My cab’s here.”

Shizuo sits up in alarm. He’s not even dressed.

Izaya comes over and gives him a hug.

“Don’t look like that. I’ll bring you back something nice. It'll fly by.”

Shizuo hangs on to him. There’s something off about him that’s more than just the coldness from their row. He wonders if this will turn out to be a kind of revenge shot, if Izaya will end up with some beautiful Russian man or woman while he's there. The thought makes his stomach hurt.

“Don’t go.”

“I have to go, Shizu-chan.”

He doesn’t sound too enthusiastic about it though.

“Do you even want to go?”

“Mm. A bit. I’ll be fine once I’m there.” He wriggles a bit. “I have to go _now,_ Shizu-chan, the cab- “

“Can’t you tell him to wait?”

“No.”

He gives Shizuo a final hug and pushes him back.

"Let me come to the airport with you."

“There's no time. Stay in bed, stay as long as you want. I’ll be in touch when I can.”

 

* * *

 

It’s not as bad as a month; a little over a week later and Izaya phones to tell him he’s probably coming home. Another two days, and he texts to tell him he’s booked his flight.

Shizuo wonders if something has gone wrong, or if this is just the nature of the work. Izaya had sounded off on the phone, but that could be jet lag, it could be having his phone off limits, it could be the cold, the food, the bed, anything at all, and the line breaks up before they can talk for long anyway.

Haneda airport. By the time Shizuo gets there – early, so he could find the right subway and the right gates -  the flight is delayed by two hours and 40 minutes. Shizuo sits over bad coffee in the only place still open, waiting. Izaya hadn't asked him to come, hadn't even told him the flight, but Shizuo had worked it out and shown up anyway. 

Most places have closed save for the cheap coffee shop he's in. He wishes he'd brought a magazine with him. He plays on his phone for a while, but he wants to save the battery in case he can't find Izaya, so he closes it again, opens it only to check for missed messages and calls, although he knows Izaya is still up in the air somewhere. He tries to people-watch instead, but they are all sleeping with their eyes open like him, and it's not interesting.

A 15 hour flight. Shizuo wonders if Izaya has slept. If it's a nice flight or if there's turbulence. If he’s antagonising his fellow passengers or the staff or if he’s behaving himself, if he’s sleeping or reading or resting his head against the window. If he’s glad he’s coming home.

He checks the time and the gates. Too early, but he stands up anyway for something to do. Watches people come out of a different flight.

Another half hour. Another 15 minutes. Izaya will be – should be – here now, getting his luggage. 

When another crowd finally emerge from arrivals, he finally sees him, heart lurching wth relief, and it takes him a minute to snap out of it and grab the other man by the wrist.

"Izaya."

He jumps - Shizuo feels it in his wrist - and lifts his head, and some of his exhaustion lifts as well when he sees who it is.

“Ah, Shizuo, I’m so glad you’re here.” And he hugs him, right in the airport in front of hundreds of tired strangers. Shizuo holds onto him, feeling himself soften with relief. He hangs on unnecessarily long, cupping his head, while everyone else herds around them.

“How are you?”

“Tired. Let's go. ” 

* * *

 

Izaya sleeps for 9 hours, 10 if you include the cab ride. And even then, he doesn't show any sign of getting out of bed. By then, Shizuo is getting ready for work and begrudges it, almost considers calling in sick.

Izaya waves this off.

“Go. I’m still tired, and I have a lot to do.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes,” he says. “Jet lag’s just worse when you go east.”

There’s still something off about him, but he pulls the covers over his head before Shizuo can say anything else. He goes to work.

* * *

 

It’s a long night with Tom. Nothing out of the ordinary, but he wants to go, he wants Izaya to be himself again and for things to return to normal.

He goes back to Shinjuku straight after work, although they hadn’t agreed to this. Izaya would surely be awake after all the time he'd slept.

Shizuo lights a cigarette on the street and takes a moment to process everything that's happened. Izaya is back, Izaya had been glad to see him. It occurs to him that he's almost happy. 

His hand freezes, mid drag, at the unmistakable sound of glass smashing. He lets the cigarette fall and staggers away from the building, peering up, right into whatever had made the sound. Holds out his arms by some kind of reflex before everything goes black.

* * *

 

He wakes up in hospital. He can't feel his arms. He _can_ feel his legs, back and head, and they're all screaming with pain. He can only see out of one eye. Kasuka, Tom, Celty and Shinra are all looking down on himm like they're holding their breath. Shizuo tilts his head round them as best he can, but he can't see anyone else on the other beds.

“He’s dead,” Shizuo says.

“No,” Shinra says. “He’s in a coma. You’re lucky you’re not.”

Celty nods and holds her phone out.

_-You saved him._

“You broke your arms on the impact,” Shinra says. “You also broke half the road. It’s amazing you both survived. You cushioned his fall completely.”

He starts saying something else, but Shizuo fades out again before he can take it in.

* * *

 

This goes on for a few days, in and out of consciousness, but the pain goes. The doctors are alarmed with the speed his arms heal, almost choose to leave the casts on 'just in case,' and he's glad when they don't as it saves him the bother of breaking them off himself.

The first time he sees himself in the mirror, it takes him a moment to realise it actually is a mirror and not one of those horror style health posters. His face so swollen, so black-purple, he really is like a monster now.

"Izaya tried to kill himself?"

He'd heard Shinra and Tom murmuring.

Shinra looks uncomfortable.

"Well, he came out of his apartment window, Shizuo. What else do you think happened?"

“But why would he throw himself through glass? Why not just open it and jump?”

Shinra shrugs.

“To make it look like foul play. To confuse people. To make it hurt more. This is Izaya we're talking about.”

Shizuo feels something sink inside him. 

He is in the same hospital as Izaya, but of course they don't tell him where he is, so one afternoon he goes to the main desk in his pyjamas, tells them he went for a walk and got lost and can't remember his ward, but it's the same ward Orihara Izaya is on. They look it up and tell him, just like that, and Shizuo stores the knowledge away for later.

They keep him in hospital a little over a week. He's a medical marvel, always has been. But he doesn't mind too much, because in that time he's got to know his way around the hospital, the schedules of the nurses and when they do their checks, and also of when Izaya's family are around, which is almost always. He can't bear to see them. Izaya has other visitors as well, a lot from men he doesn't recognise. He hopes  that none of them want to hurt Izaya or are in love with him.

* * *

 

It's not until late one night, however, that he manages to actually see Izaya himself. If he, Shizuo, had had to go into hospital, Izaya would surely barely be alive. He braces himself for the worse, so much so that when he actually sees Izaya, he thinks there must be a mistake. Yes there are bandages, yes there are bruises and cuts from the glass, but no neckbrace, no disfigurement. If it weren't for the tubes and heart monitor, he would look just like he is sleeping.

“Hi.”

He looks at Izaya stupidly like he’ll get a response, although he doesn’t so much as twitch behind his eyelids. Shizuo swallows.

“Everyone still thinks you jumped,” he says, a little unsteadily. “I was beginning to wonder myself. But. It doesn’t make any sense. You wouldn’t have jumped. And if you did, you would have left a note. You would have boxed things up in your apartment and made it easy for everyone. It’s not like you have the safest job in the world. I was so sure someone pushed you.”

He hesitates, as if waiting for Izaya to agree with him.

“But then I talked to Shinra, and he said you’ve been sad for a long time.”

More silence.

“I never knew that. All the time I spent with you, and I never thought about what you were feeling, except that sex chilled you out a bit because you were nowhere near as mean as you used to be. It made you nice enough to make French toast and give a hell of a massage.  I was rethinking all this stuff about my own life, but I never thought about how close we weren’t getting. I guess Shinra knows you better than I do.”

Silence.

“Maybe you wanted people to think you were pushed. Or maybe you were pushed but you saw it coming and you deliberately didn’t get out of the way. That keeps me up at night. The more I think about it, the more I believe it.”

Silence.

“The reason you’re alive, if you’re wondering,” he continues. “Is I caught you. Everyone’s amazed it didn’t kill me. It was enough to save you, but the impact put you in a coma. So I haven’t saved you, not really. Maybe I should have done it better, cushioned you more. But what can I say, I wasn’t expecting you to come flying out of your fucking window.”

He shifts and lies next to Izaya on the bed, twisting his arm through the tubes so he can hold his hand. 

“I think your Mom knows,” he says. “She hasn’t said anything, but, she’s seen me around and, well, she just looks sad. She seems nice. She caught me here the other night, and I damn near split my head open getting off the bed so fast. She just looked at me like she knew, and she didn't seem very surprised. I wonder what you make of that." He pauses. "I keep meaning to speak to her when I can bring myself to. I wish you’d just wake up and make it easier. I’ll speak to her all you want then.”

He pauses.

“I think you’d get on with Kasuka. You have a similar sense of humour, and you’re both so smart. You should speak to him when you wake up.”

Izaya’s so warm. The only difference is the stillness.

“Your sisters have sort of turned on me,” he says. “I don’t know why. Maybe they think it was my fault. If they don’t know I caught you, maybe they think I pushed you. Or maybe they just need to lash out.” He sighs. 

Silence.

"It doesn’t matter if you did jump, you know. I mean, it matters, obviously, but I’m not mad, if you’re worried about that.”

Silence.

This feels like the most he's talked to Izaya in one go. It is normally Izaya who is the talker.

"Shinra says it’s lucky I caught you otherwise I might have been a suspect. I’m glad they’re starting to think that way.They all thought you jumped on purpose, although that's stupid - why wouldn't you just open the window? But then apparently they found traces of alcohol in your system, and, well, that didn't help. I couldn't believe it. It was like hearing about somebody else."

He waits, as if giving Izaya the chance to argue with him.

"But I bumped into your secretary yesterday and she said she'd just come from the police station, and she - they - think someone definitely pushed you. So maybe you'd had a drink because you'd been feeling lousy and something happened, but I don't believe you wanted to jump, I can't."

He pauses.

"But then, Shinra seems to believe it easily enough, and he's your best friend. Just because I slept with you a lot doesn't mean I know you at all, especially in these past few months."

He sighs. His head hurts, his whole body hurts.

"19 days now, Izaya. I keep thinking the same things every fucking day. The first night we, you know, in the bar in the storm, I was having some really serious thought about my life. And all the time after as well. I don’t know how I could have been concentrating so hard on that and then totally missed the fact that I was getting close to you.  Celty says maybe I’m just getting carried away because I'm still in shock, but I don’t think so. I feel like I've missed something really important and it's scaring me."

Silence. Some people apparently move when they're in a coma, even open their eyes, but Izaya doesn't so much as twitch.

"I keep dreaming about you waking up. I think your fingers twitch or something, and then you open your eyes, and I hug you and hold on to you, hit the button for the nurses, call your parents…and then I open my eyes and you're still lying here, and nothing’s different."

He sits up and strokes Izaya’s hair.

“You don’t look like you nearly died, you handsome prick. You don’t even look hurt. All the nurses'll be falling for you.” He leans down and kisses Izaya on the forehead. “Anyway, I better get going. Wake up soon, OK? I miss you.”

He hesitates, and his voice cracks.

“All right, it doesn’t have to be soon. Take as long as you need, you deserve it. So long as you’ll be OK eventually. But don’t leave it too much longer, OK? You’re killing me.”

Silence.

“All that wasted fucking time, ‘Zaya. You better not die now."

Silence.

* * *

 

When he leaves Izaya that morning, he's too tired to even go outside to find a cab, so he staggers to the hospital canteen and lets a plastic cup of coffee go cold in front of him, head on his arms. He'd been living on hospital food although he'd been discharged over a week ago - jello pots, soup, cheap steamed buns, chicken, beef and pork that all tasted exactly the same.

It takes him a moment to come to when he feels a little hand prodding him.  He lifts his head to find a pair of identical faces staring down at him. He is so tired, he can’t remember which of them is which.

“Nii-san’s awake.”

Awake. Awake. This echoes over and over in his head before it sinks in, as he snaps upright so suddenly he scrapes the table forward, and the other diners all turn and stare at him.

“He’s OK,” Mairu says, taking his hand as if _he_ were the sibling. “But Mom says you should see him now before he falls asleep.”

“…Asleep…?”

“He woke up an hour ago.” she says. “They’ve been checking him over and we’ve been talking to him. He's worn out.”

They come with him to the ward and let go of his hands by the door. He sees Izaya's parents talking to one of the doctors, their backs to him.

He comes forward until he sees Izaya, in the exact same position in bed, still pale and still but with his eyes open. He gives Shizuo a tired smile.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

He sinks on the bed and pushes his face into Izaya’s stomach. Izaya starts stroking his hair, and he marvels at the feel of it, Izaya awake and moving. 

“Your roots are showing.”

“...yeah,” he says shakily, slightly muffled. His eyes are hot. “I’ve been kind of out of it.”

“Thanks for catching me.”

“Thanks for waking up.”

* * *

 

 

His sisters come over when he eventually sits up, flopping on the bed at either side of their brother, who promptly withdraws under the covers. Shizuo wonders if they understand what a close call it had been, or whether they're just trying to feel normal.

"Cake here sucks," Mairu comments.

"They've been feeding you on a tube, Nii-san," Kururi says matter-of-factly. "You're going to hate the food here. Even we hate it."

"Maybe Shizuo will bring you something."

"How come you've only been coming at night, Shizuo-san?"

They both turn and stare at him, and Izaya goes still under the covers.

“Well, they wouldn't let me in. I'm not family."

They smile at him.

“You’ll have to marry him.”

“And if you marry him, we’ll be related to Kasuka.”

Izaya groans from under the sheets.

“Leave him alone.”

 _Marry him_ , the twins mouth in unison, and Shizuo's too exhausted to respond.

* * *

 

He goes home and sleeps a long, sweet sleep, the quality he hadn't had since Izaya first got back from Russia. He showers, has a real meal, and makes a half assed attempt to clean his neglected apartment. By the time he's finished, it's late enough for the Oriharas to have gone home, for the nurses to be elsewhere but, thankfully, early enough for Izaya to still be awake. He hoists himself over the bed railings and hugs him.

“You smell of rain," Izaya tells him, burying his face in his hair. 

“Sorry.”

“No. It’s nice.”

“Mm. What happened?”

“What happened? I don’t really remember. I remember…bits. Sleeping and showering and texting, but I can’t remember what order. Apparently I had a drink, but I wouldn't have had a lot.”

“Shinra thinks you jumped.”

“Do you?”

“I didn’t,” Shizuo says. “I was sure you didn’t. Now I’m not so sure.”

 “ _Shinra_ think I jumped,” he says suddenly. “He says I’m kidding myself. He said I could have just done it on the spur of the moment.”

He sees Shizuo’s face and takes his hand.

“I’m not suicidal, Shizuo. I’m not thinking about trying something the minute your back’s turned.”

“Are you glad you’re alive?”

“Of course I am. I didn’t jump."

“How can you say that if you don’t remember?”

“Because I know who pushed me.”

Shizuo stiffens.

“There’s nothing to worry about. He’s just a kid, not much older than my sisters, and he’s not in a good place. He came by and apologised.”

Shizuo absorbs this in silence.

"I thought you seemed unhappy in Russia."

"Mm. It wasn't great. I normally have quite a good time, but I didn't have much freedom. I had a nice dinner with someone when I got there, but that was about all the fun I had."

"Oh."

“Don’t look like that, you idiot. Not _that_ kind of friend. He’s more like a father figure. And he’s married with kids.”

“Don't go back."

“This had nothing to do with Russia, Shizuo.”

“Don’t go back anyway,” he mumbles. “It’s so far, they take your phone, it’s cold, racist, homophobic- “

“Shizuo,” Izaya says laughing. “I think you’re the racist one. Perhaps I’ll take you for a vacation there and you’ll change your mind.”

“I do want a vacation,” he says suddenly. “When you're better and you're up for it. But not there. Somewhere relaxing. With a beach and palm trees. Or something.”

“How cliché,” Izaya says, laughing, drifting off. “But yes, a vacation would be great right about now. I'll think about it. As soon as they let me out. ”


End file.
